Whether or Not It Matters

A professional practice can be a strange thing. Especially coming from a blue collar background, where anybody I ever knew was always working for somebody else. My parents (and as bitter as it is, I'm grateful they aren't around to see my work crumble) always looked, I think, on my efforts with bemusement.  In our family's world, employment was a matter of doing your time and taking your paycheck. 


Oddly enough, it's not the first business I started. I formed a start-up (still going, btw) with two other architects (a woman and an Hispanic; I'm inordinately proud of the fact that I've always opted to work with outsider types. Punk stays with you)  which dissolved after a couple of years. I know it will be astonishing to most of you, but Architects have large egos. It's True!

But as I've written before, after that other firm, it was about this same time of year we separated and I found myself looking at a nebulous future, with no particular job prospects and no clear direction to pursue. After a bit of consideration, I elected to accept a client or two who wanted to work with me, and started working out of my attic. I hired a college student, Jeremy, to do some drafting and who famously was once called to feed our dog while I went out drinking with a client (In my defense, I told him to come down for a beer after feeding Mieshka). After not too long, we  moved into a renovated factory building on the River, near the now-chic Brady Street.

in recent days, I've been doing triage on my files and other business trappings;  I look back.  I hired a friend, then other people who became friends.  People moved on, a couple of them started a residential firm (I've been spun off.  I feel like Happy Days).  I worked on so many cool projects, and so many less than cool ones.  I have worked for several years now with people in the Milwaukee African American community and am also inordinately proud of that work in areas of the city damaged by neglect and poverty.  I met and worked with both mayors, and received design awards once or twice.  I designed houses for friends.  I managed not to destroy my marriage doing so.

The other night, my son said "Mom says you're going to be closing The Office".  Not YOUR office.  It struck me hard that he has never known anything other than Dad having The Office; he  was a common visitor, hell resident, from the earliest days, when I had to watch to make sure he didn't fall down the spiral stair.  I took him to job sites, where contractors would gravely adjust a hardhat for his head, and ask his opinion on construction issues.  He told me early on he wanted to be an Architect (although I think his mother may have tried to convince him otherwise).  

One of my favorite traditions was taking the office to Summerfest at lunchtime on the first Thursday.  

This year, there was nobody to take.

Years ago, I was not on track to be an Architect. To be honest, I was barely on track to go to college. Other than a brief class in high school, but let's be realistic I also had classes in Physics, Ceramics, Wood Shop, and Chemistry - none of those were in my sights either; I had never considered the field until a roommate showed me some of his work in college. I talked to his professor, an Architect/Engineer from Madison, and something.... CLICKED. I would be surprised if  Carl  didn't actually fuckin hear it.

Still and In the end, I love creating  and impacting the built environment, and I love drawing it, and I love watching something I first imagined become reality, eventually to be occupied by families or businesses, becoming a part of the living City.  Occasionally I point out to my son things that I had some part in making, standing as part of the City we live in.  I've been doing it on a professional basis  for over 20 years now; I have a hard time imagining not doing it any longer.

And I sit here in my soon-to-be erstwhile office, throwing over a decade's worth of my life into the dumpster, refusing to weep because it seems like if I do, all that part of my life will just roll away like my tears....

And it seems to me that this is what all effort eventually comes to, dust and landfill.